Youmi Kimura
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Youmi Kimura (木村弓 Kimura Yumi) is a Japanese singer and lyre performer. She was born in Osaka, Japan, and became famous in 2001 for her song "Always With Me" (いつも何度でも Itsumo Nando Demo), which served as the closing theme to the anime film Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) by Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎駿).
Kimura and Miyazaki had great admiration for each other's works. She was so moved by his 1997 film Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime, もののけ姫, in Japan), that she wrote a letter to him, enclosed with a copy of her album. Miyazaki wrote her back and mentioned to her about a film he was currently working on called Rin the Chimney Painter (煙突描きのリン Entotsu-kaki no Rin). Hoping Miyazaki would use her material on this film, Kimura, with her lyricist Wakako Kaku (覚和歌子), wrote a new song called “Itsumo Nando Demo”. Miyazaki did like the song, and intended to use it, but the Rin project was eventually scrapped.
Sometime later, Miyazaki started working on his next film Spirited Away, and listened to the song again. Througout the entire production, he would listen to it obsessively. He would later realize that Kimura's song about finding inner peace meshed perfectly with his coming of age story of a girl who finds her inner strength.
Kimura would again work with Miyazaki on his next project, providing the theme the 2004 movie, Howl's Moving Castle (ハウルの動く城 Hauru no Ugoku Shiro).
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